Health & WellnessS


Health

Inhaled steroids increase chances of diabetes: researchers

Charlie Fidelman
Montreal Gazette
Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:02 UTC
Montreal researchers have discovered that patients using inhaled steroids increase their chances of developing diabetes.

Patients with lung disease should ask their physicians about treatment with the synthetic hormone medication because the higher the dose, the greater the risk, said Samy Suissa, director of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical of the Jewish General Hospital.

Oral corticosteroids like prednisone have long been known to increase the risk of diabetes, but this is the first time the effect has been observed with the inhaled form, said Suissa, lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Medicine.

Inhaled steroids have become the mainstay of medical treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the new name for emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

But they have been shown to increase the risk of cataracts and pneumonia, "and now we are finding the increase in diabetes," said Suissa, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at McGill University.

Dipping into Quebec's database kept by the provincial health insurance board, the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec, Suissa's team studied 400,000 patients over 18 years.
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Cheeseburger

Everything you thought you knew about food is WRONG

Alice Hart-davis
The Daily Mail, UK
Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:06 UTC
We think we know what to eat: less red meat and more fibre, less saturated fat and more fruit and veg, right? Wrong, according to a controversial new book by obesity researcher and nutritionist Zoe Harcombe.

In The Obesity Epidemic: What Caused It? How Can We Stop It? Harcombe charts her meticulous journey of research into studies that underpin dietary advice - and her myth-busting conclusions are startling.

Food Myths_1
© Getty ImagesDitch conventional diet advice: Zoe Harcombe says vitamins and minerals in meat are better than those in fruit.
Myth: The rapid rise in obesity is due to modern lifestyles

According to Zoe Harcombe, the ­obesity epidemic has less to do with our lifestyles than with what we are eating.

'The key thing that people don't realise is that throughout history, right until the Seventies, obesity levels never went above 2 per cent of the population in the UK,' she says. 'Yet by the turn of the millennium, obesity levels were 25 per cent.

'What happened? In 1983, the government changed its diet advice. After that, if you look at the graphs, you can see obesity rates taking off like an aeroplane. You might feel it is coincidence, but to me it is blindingly obvious.

'The older dietary advice was simple; foods based on flour and grains were ­fattening, and sweet foods were most ­fattening of all.

'Mum and Granny told us to eat liver, eggs, sardines and to put butter on our vegetables. The new advice was "base your meals on starchy foods" - the things that we used to know made us fat (rice, pasta, potatoes and bread). That's a U-turn.'

Comment: For readers wishing to look more into diet and health issues, you may want to read the Diet and Health board on our forum.

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Beer

Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine

Maria Cheng
The Associated Press
Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:40 UTC
wine
© Unknown
Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.

Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.
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Alarm Clock

Bisphenol-A Now Linked to Male Infertility

Richard Alleyne
The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:00 UTC
A controversial chemical used for decades in the mass production of food containers and baby bottles has been linked to male infertility for the first time.

Image
© Journal Sentinel Inc.Many products with toxic levels of Bisphenol-A
Bisphenol-A (BPA), known as the "gender bending" chemical because of its connection to male impotence, has now been shown to decrease sperm mobility and quality.

The findings are likely to increase pressure on governments around the world to follow Canada and ban the substance from our shelves.

BPA is used widely to make plastic harder and watertight tin cans.

It is found in most food and drink cans - including tins of infant formula milk - plastic food containers, and the casings of mobile phones, and other electronic goods.
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Health

Indian veggies, fruits remain highly toxic


The Times of India
Sat, 30 Oct 2010 17:42 UTC
Rampant use of banned pesticides in fruits and vegetables continues to put at risk the life of the common man. Farmers apply pesticides such as chlordane, endrin and heptachor that can cause serious neurological problems, kidney damage and skin diseases. A study conducted by Delhi-based NGO Consumer-Voice reveals that the amount of pesticides used in eatables in India is as much as 750 times the European standards. The survey collected sample data from various wholesale and retail shops in Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata.

"Out of five internationally-banned pesticides, four were found to be common in vegetables sold in the Indian markets. Banned pesticides were found in bitter gourd and spinach,'' said Sisir Ghosh, head of Consumer-Voice. The banned chemicals included chlordane, a potent central nervous system toxin, endrin, which can cause headache nausea and dizziness, and heptachor that can damage the liver and decrease fertility.

Officials said the tests conducted on vegetables at the government-approved and NABL-accredited laboratory, Arbro Analytical Division, revealed that the Indian ladies finger contained captan, a toxic pesticide, up to 15,000 parts per billion (ppb) whereas ladies finger in the EU has captan only up to 20 ppb. "Indian cauliflower can have malathion pesticide up to 150 times higher than the European standards,'' said an official.
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Butterfly

Bowel Disease: Healing the Gut By Eliminating Food Toxins

Paul Jaminet, Ph.D. and Shou-Ching Shih, Ph.D.
Perfect Health Diet
Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00 UTC
The gut is the front line of health. The human gut houses 100 trillion bacteria from a thousand different species [1]; they weigh several pounds and make up about half the dry weight of stool. To control these bacteria 70% to 80% of the body's immune cells are normally found in and around the gut.

A healthy gut is protected by a mucosal layer that is designed to promote commensal (friendly) bacteria, while providing a barrier to pathogenic bacteria. Humans have evolved ways to "feed" commensal species of bacteria. For instance:
  • Human mucus is made of glycoproteins, or compounds made of protein and sugar. Certain probiotic bacteria, such as Bifidobacterium bifidum, are able to digest human mucus. [2] Thus, the human intestine has evolved to produce "food" for beneficial gut bacteria, assuring that they are maintained even during long fasts.
  • Mother's milk contains special sugars, called human milk oligosaccharides, which specifically feed Bifidobacterium bifidum and assure that this species successfully colonizes the baby's intestine and wards off infection. [3]
The absence of this protective barrier of mucus and friendly bacteria makes the intestine extremely vulnerable to infectious disease. Premature babies who are fed formula, not human breast milk, often contract a dangerous intestinal infection, necrotizing enterocolitis. [3]

In addition to pathogenic bacteria, the gut is confronted by a heavy load of toxins. Bruce Ames and Lois Gold have estimated that the average person eats 5,000 to 10,000 different plant toxins, amassing to 1500 mg per day, plus 2000 mg of burnt toxins generated during cooking. [4]

Today's post will focus on how those 1500 mg of natural plant toxins damage the intestinal wall and its mucosal barrier, thereby bringing about infectious bowel diseases.
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Key

A healthy gut is the hidden key to weight loss

Chris Kresser
The Healthy Skeptic
Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:21 UTC
Image
In a previous article in this series on diabesity I briefly mentioned the role of gut health in obesity and diabetes. I'd like to go into more detail on that subject here, especially since it's not a very well known relationship.

Our gut is home to approximately 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) microorganisms. That's such a big number our human brains can't really comprehend it. One trillion dollar bills laid end-to-end would stretch from the earth to the sun - and back - with a lot of miles to spare. Do that 100 times and you start to get at least a vague idea of how much 100 trillion is.

The human gut contains 10 times more bacteria than all the human cells in the entire body, with over 400 known diverse bacterial species. In fact, you could say that we're more bacterial than we are human. Think about that one for a minute.

We've only recently begun to understand the extent of the gut flora's role in human health and disease. Among other things, the gut flora promotes normal gastrointestinal function, provides protection from infection, regulates metabolism and comprises more than 75% of our immune system. Dysregulated gut flora has been linked to diseases ranging from autism and depression to autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's, inflammatory bowel disease and type 1 diabetes.
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Pumpkin

How Candy and Halloween Became Best Friends

Samira Kawash
Theatlantic.com
Thu, 21 Oct 2010 04:16 UTC
Image
© Corey Ann/Flickr
Wherever you turn this October, candy beckons. Americans will spend an estimated $2 billion on candy during the Halloween season this year, and here's a fun fact from the California Milk Processors Board: "an average Jack-O-Lantern bucket carries about 250 pieces of candy amounting about 9,000 calories and about three pounds of sugar."

Phew. My molars are hurting just thinking about it. If treats are a temptation you hope to avoid, October is the cruelest month. And I can think of only one place in America where your Halloween composure is unlikely to be ruffled by endless quantities of cheap and glittering candies: the past.

Given the ubiquity of candy at this time of year, it is hard to imagine that 100 years ago, Halloween looked quite different from the candy debauch of today.

The biggest difference was trick-or-treating. This seemingly timeless custom is actually a quite recent American invention. The ritual of costumes, doorbell-ringing, and expectation of booty appeared for the first time in different locations throughout the country in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It wasn't until the late 1940s that trick-or-treating became widespread on a national scale. And even then, candy wasn't the obvious treat.
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Attention

Toxins Disrupting our Bodies

Kristin Wartman
Civil Eats
Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:35 UTC
Image
© unknown
Recently, the Canadian government declared bisphenol-A (BPA) toxic, a step I hope the U.S. will soon take since the scientific evidence is mounting that BPA - along with many other endocrine disruptors in our environment - are abundant in our bodies and are having deleterious effects.

One problem with BPA is its ubiquity. It's a chemical commonly used to line the interior of food and beverage cans, as well as to make plastic bottles and other hard, clear plastics. Ninety-three percent of Americans tested had detectable levels of BPA in their urine. Experts say the substance can clear from adult bodies with efficiency, but our constant exposure to it probably makes this irrelevant.

Even more problematic is that babies, children, and fetuses cannot excrete BPA efficiently, causing it to build up in their systems. Because of these findings, Canada banned BPA from baby bottles, as did several U.S. states, including New York, Connecticut and Minnesota.
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Magnify

Gluten Intolerance Tied to Schizophrenia

Jefferson Adams
Examiner
Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:20 UTC
Image
© UHIA team of UK researchers has connected gluten with schizophrenia.
A team of researchers at Inverness, Scotland's UHI have confirmed a connection between gluten and schizophrenia. The team's work is part of two projects designed to assess what role gluten might play in the development of schizophrenia and diabetes.

Findings from their latest research demonstrate that about 30% of people who suffer from schizophrenia cannot properly break down the proteins found in wheat, rye, and barley gluten. When these people eat gluten, they suffer from intestinal damage similar to that found in people with untreated celiac disease. Such patients "might also benefit from a gluten-free diet," according to senior researcher and genetics reader, Dr Jun Wei.

According to the team's research, gluten proteins might play a role in activating schizophrenia in people who carry genes for the disorder, or in aggravating the condition in those who already suffer from it.

These results support the growing view that schizophrenia and diabetes arise from a combination of genetic factors and environmental triggers; gluten being one such trigger.

Comment: See our articles on celiac disease and wheat:

The Dark Side of Wheat: New Perspectives on Celiac Disease and Wheat Intolerance

Can You Stomach Wheat? How Giving Up Grain May Better Your Health

Headaches, Depression, Nerve Damage, and Seizures...Is Gluten to Blame?

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